On September 14, 1862, Robert E. Lee's opportunistic first invasion of the North was turned back at the gaps of South Mountain near Boonsboro, Maryland. The fighting was desperate and for the numbers engaged rather bloody. It has become just a footnote in history, but it was here that the Confederacy reached it's high tide.

South Mountain by Rick Reeve

South Mountain by Rick Reeve depicting the wounding of General Garland

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Lieutenant Colonel Owen K. McLemore, 4th Alabama

This is a sketch from a photo of Lt. Colonel Owen McLemore who commanded the 4th Alabama Infantry in the brigade of Colonel Evander Law. A West Point Graduate, McLemore resigned his commission in April 1861 just days before the firing on Fort Sumter. He would travel home to Alabama where he would help raise the 14th Alabama Infantry and was appointed the regiment's major.

Following the First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, the heavy casualties suffered by the 4th Alabama left the regiment without any field officers to lead it. By order of the Confederate Congress, McLemore was re-assigned to the 4th Alabama where he drilled and lead the regiment in the fighting that occurred on the Virginia Peninsula in May, June, and July of 1862. He would lead the regiment at the Battle of Second Bull Run/Manassas and on into Maryland in September 1862. Leading his regiment in the forced march from Hagerstown on September 14th, McLemore leads his regiment up the mountain and down the Woods Road, as survivors from Drayton's Brigade filter back towards Turner's Gap, and into line. With bayonet's fixed, the 4th advanced along with the rest of John Bell Hood's Division. The counterattack was successful in ending the Union threat. It was during this attack the McLemore would receive a mortal wound. He would be carried off the mountain and transported to Shepherdstown, (West) Virginia for treatment.

After the Maryland Campaign ended, he would be taken to Winchester, Virginia where he would succumb to his wounds. He was 27. His body would be taken home to Alabama and he is buried in the Lafayette Cemetery in Lafayette, Alabama under a simple headstone.

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About Me

I am a student of the Civil War. I've had an interest in studying this conflict since I was ten and my passion for it has just grown ever since. I want to bring to life the stories of those men who fought and bled so that this nation could experience a "new birth of freedom". I am a former NPS intern at South Mountain State Battlefield and also a former Historical Intepreter at Fort Frederick State Park.